My
daughter and I were at Borders Books recently and our eyes fell on this book
cover at the same time. She asked, "Why does everybody hate Wal-Mart?" I
told her, "They don't. There are just a few people who think Wal-Mart is bad
for us, and they want us to think everyone hates them."
As I thought about my instant answer, it made me want to cover this mysterious loathing that causes artists to render the Wal-Mart smiley guy as a form of Shiva, the Destroyer, and Howard Dean's former campaign advisor, Paul Blank, to join a national campaign against Wal-Mart. And I wanted to find out if our own local politicians were a part of this campaign. But most importantly, I wanted to know if it was true; that Wal-Mart was actually harmful to our community.
I've heard some of the arguments: they put mom and pop stores out of business; they abuse their employees; they buy from Chinese manufacturers who employ slave labor; and they contribute to urban sprawl. I shop at Wal-Mart once in awhile, but I usually avoid it. The reason is because they are usually too busy to be convenient for me, even though I live only about 10 blocks away. And the service is usually less than tolerable. However, the multitudes keep voting with their debit cards, so any attempt at a boycott to keep them out of town seems futile. Instead, Wal-mart's opponents use the approach that Wal-Mart is actually immoral.
Although I have heard vigorous preaching against the legislation of morality from people who say that no one should tell you what you can do with your body, there is much more freedom to make laws telling us what we can do with our money. Income taxes tell us how much we can keep. Land use and zoning laws tell us where we can spend it. Occupational licenses and insurance regulations narrow the field of who we can pay for services. Some of these are reasonable and unavoidable. We all want the government to step in and take the side of the public interest against those who could do it long term harm. Some of it even gets done with our consent. And that is the question that needs a much longer look by the general public, and not just the handful of activists who know where the anti-Wal-Mart jihad is heading: Are we really harming ourselves by shopping at Wal-Mart?
I lived in Levy County before the Wal-Mart Super Center came to town. It was full of privately owned clothing, grocery, hardware, furniture and variety stores. I cleaned the windows for most of those shops, and some of them complained rather bitterly about their big competitor: Gainesville. People were not loyal to their neighbors, they said. Folks should shop closer to home. The biggest complainers where usually the dirtiest stores with the dustiest merchandise. They were in competition with stores in Gainesville because people could drive there and take their money elsewhere. Even if Wal-Mart had never come to town, the Internet may very well have finished of these marginal stores that refused to change with the times, even when all that time brought was dust. Gone were the days when people only went to Gainesville once a year to sell their hogs or buy machine parts.
In contrast, my wife and I owned a small Christian book store in Trenton, in Gilchrist County, during the 80s. My wife, Cindi, kept her finger on the local pulse to find out what customers usually drove to Gainesville for. She took special orders and ate the shipping. She gave demos of accompaniment cassettes by singing with them over the phone to local soloists. It was not unusual for people to come in and find on our shelves what they could not find in Gainesville. When we sold the store, it was in the black and turning a profit every year since it had opened. When it went under, it was not because of Wal-Mart. The new owners simply did not have the same zeal for customer service that we did.
In this age of "living wage" movements, it is popular to assail big companies for not paying their employees "a living wage". Small companies are never the targets of these campaigns, probably because they do not have deep enough pockets to be worth the while of some attorney. But Wal-Mart is America's biggest employer, so they can certainly pay more, even if it means they can no longer offer the same low prices that enable them sell in such large volume and to hire so many people in the first place. So, does the living wage actually kill jobs?
High pay does not automatically eliminate jobs, other wise, we would have an alarmingly shrinking number of doctors and lawyers. The demand for certain services keeps their prices up. What keeps wages low in the retail sector is the large number of people who can do those jobs, and that number is so large because the level of skill is so low. So, should Wal-Mart have to pay more for less skills? Does this not punish them compared to other, smaller businesses?
What is lost to so many Americans today is the idea that entry level jobs in low-skill workplaces are a kind of school for young workers. It's where so many of us first cut our teeth on the ideas of being on time, putting customers first, and doing work that we had to answer for. Our educational system does not teach these basic business skills when it grades on the curve, resists being judged on merit, and tries to enforce an educational monopoly.
For years, I have been an avid reader of clothing labels. Is it made in America? I'll take it. I voted for Pat Buchanan in the 1992 Republican Primary because I was tired of seeing our own government give tax breaks to companies to leave America. I've even raised the specter of slave labor in China. Was I right? or was I just on a roll?
I struggle with how we do business in a global economy. It's a world so interconnected that the most conscientious shopper can still end up supporting things she is against with her money inadvertently. There is also the matter of perspective. Even a good job in China would be spurned by most Americans as beneath them. And what are the long-term consequences of refusing to do business with China so they can continue to keep their people down on the farm, so to speak? Is the Chinese peasantry of the socialist workers paradise really better off without our money? Is China growing a middle class because we are doing business with them, or in spite of it?
If you think the fall of the Soviet Empire was a good thing, you have to wonder what gets the credit: their inability to maintain a military superpower at our high level, or a critical mass of exposure to American culture and consumer goods that sapped their people's will to hate us? Could Wal-Mart help democratize China?
In Alachua County, the battle cry against big box stores like Wal-Mart has been a part of the campaign against Urban Sprawl. This would seem to be immaterial in the case of the proposed Wal-Mart Super Center, since it was to be included in the urban boundary of Gainesville. The city commissioners did see fit to kick it out to the east side, however. Apparently, it is not sprawl if it goes east. Why is that? Perhaps sprawl is some sort of code word for nice homes on large lots, and maybe it has been decided by our elected officials that Western Alachua County has enough already.
They are welcome, even encouraged, here. I write to provoke you so that there will actually be a debate on the local issues that affect us all. Let's stop letting a tiny number of people debate how the vast majority of us will spend our time and money in our own town. I am sending this article to all the City Commission candidates and asking them to weigh in on these issues.
Don Marsh
1-20-2006
Reader response:
Don...Like most difficult issues, Supercenters in Alachua County leave room for honest debate. Mostly, opinions depend upon individual perspective. If you do not compete with Wal-mart, it's easy to take a "free enterprise" position. If you do, the terms "robber-barons", "monopoly", "unfair competition", etc. come to mind. If you are associated with the university and/or Santa Fe, "tacky urban sprawl", "poor pay and benefits", "poor environmental record", "just plain ugly", and "Gainesville is not Starke or Chiefland" seem pervasive. My sense is that most people who VOTE in Alachua County are against the Supercenters for one reason or another. It is NOT a small elitist group, but a wide and deep majority of voters who are thinking of the ramifications of drastically altered retail and auto traffic patterns. Many communities long for the days before Wal-mart sucked the life out of the traditional business community in favor of "always....low prices". Best wishes, Jeff Montgomery, Gainesville, FL
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